Health is Wealth

JAK Inhibitors Show Promise for Alopecia, Eczema, Vitiligo

“I’m highly optimistic about JAK inhibitors for inflammatory skin diseases,” said Emma Guttman, MD, PhD, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

JAK inhibitors will likely have better safety profiles for skin disease than for arthritic disease. “In skin diseases, we will probably not have the toxicity level we had in rheumatoid arthritis because people with skin diseases are usually healthy people,” she told Medscape Medical News. However, safety information will need to be gathered over time, she added.

Dr Guttman said she agrees that JAK inhibitors will be approved for eczema first, probably in 3 years, because studies are well established, but for alopecia, she puts the timeline closer to 5 to 6 years.

More information is needed about vitiligo, she explained, because “it’s not clear how well we can reverse the disease in full.”